History rocks in 'Bloody Andrew Jackson'

THEATER

Published 12:34 pm, Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Ashkon Davaran plays the title role of the seventh president in the rock musical "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson."

Ashkon Davaran plays the title role of the seventh president in the rock musical "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson."

Photo: Lauren English, SF Playhouse

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Michael Friedman wrote the music and lyrics for "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson."

Michael Friedman wrote the music and lyrics for "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson."

Photo: Courtesy SF Playhouse, SF Playhouse

History rocks in 'Bloody Andrew Jackson'

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On Broadway, the tag line for the show was, "History just got all sexypants." How else to explain "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson," an emo rock musical about the life of America's seventh president?

Since its short three-month run on Broadway, "Bloody Bloody" has gone on to become one of the most produced new plays in the country, according to American Theatre magazine, with eight major productions slated for the 2012-13 season.

The Bay Area has already seen one production of the rock musical - last summer at San Jose Stage Company - and now the first San Francisco production opens at the SF Playhouse in time to celebrate the company's 10th anniversary season and its new home at the former Post Street Theatre.

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When composer/lyricist Michael Friedman was set up on a blind date - a professional blind date, not a personal one - with writer Alex Timbers of the company Les Freres Corbusier, their initial meeting spawned the Andrew Jackson musical idea almost immediately.

"This has got to be the most quickly conceived show in history," Friedman says on the phone from his Manhattan home. "I majored in history and literature at Harvard and had taken an astonishing course on Jacksonian America. And Alex and his company were interested in dealing with political figures in interesting ways."

So the two artists began crafting an irreverent blend of history and mythology about Jackson, the so-called "people's president" who was, among other things, a war hero, the governor of Florida and the guy who created the Democratic Party. He was also the first president who was from the territories and not a founding father or a son of a founding father.

"In many ways, he invented the American presidency as we know it today," Friedman says. "He was the first to campaign and the first to have a campaign song. The obvious comparison is that he was a maverick cowboy like George W. Bush, another president who didn't think too much. But you can also feel Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Obama and the Tea Party in him. Everyone who runs for president now is in the shadow of this man."

To create his score, Friedman immersed himself in the world of emo rock, which he describes as "sad angry boy rock music." More specifically, he listened to a lot of Fall out Boy, Weezer (especially their album "Pinkerton") and, most influentially, Dashboard Confessional.

That kind of music isn't exactly what comes to mind when you think of Ashkon Davaran, the actor playing Andrew Jackson at SF Playhouse. Though he is a seasoned actor, he's best known for performing a version of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" customized for the San Francisco Giants in 2010, the year they won the World Series. His video of the song went viral and has, to date, been watched nearly 3 million times.

In some ways, rallying Giants fans isn't all that different from playing a head-banging Andrew Jackson attempting to stir up a populist movement.

"I'm definitely ready for that part - the singing, the inspiring, the trying to motivate people," Davaran says on the phone from his Mission District home. "Other than that, I'm not sure I have a lot in common with Andrew Jackson, but that's one of the things I love about theater. You find ways to empathize with stories that are not your own. Empathy is a starting point to understanding."

One thing Davaran definitely doesn't have in common with "Old Hickory" is background. Jackson grew up in Appalachian country with Irish immigrant parents. Davaran was born to Persian immigrants and grew up in Kensington and graduated from El Cerrito High School.

"There's a lot of sensitive material in this show," Davaran says. "Seeing the story told by a bunch of white people has a different effect than with an ethnically diverse cast like we have. Some of the stereotypes you might come in with are thrown out the window for a modern re-telling of history. We're trying not to put characters in boxes. I'm going to be Andrew Jackson playing a guitar and singing songs. I'll leave it to the audience to decide what box to put me in."

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